History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c8.s2.2

c8.s2.2

¹ Compare also : “Kannojam kila Kānyakubja-nagaram sā rājadhānī purā” (*Kānyakubja-Mahākāvya*, p. 194). Moslem writers usually write Qannauj قنوج (see e.g., *Ṭabaqāt-i-Akbarī*, Vol. I, p. 39, ed. B. De). Raverty, however, gives the form Kinnauj in his translation of the *Ṭabaqāt-i-Nāsirī* (I, p. 470, etc.). From the *Śarb-i-Ta’rīkh-i-Yamīnī* also the proper way of pronouncing Kanauj appears to be “Kinnauj” with the last letter but slightly enunciated (see Extracts in Elliot, II, p. 52). Fa-hian transliterates it as Ka-nao-yi or Kanoyi, and Thomas Watters is of opinion that it represents “the name which was probably in use among the natives” (Watters, I, p. 341). Accordingly Vincent Smith asserts that the name Kanauj is “ancient” and was “current fifteen hundred years ago” (*J. R. A. S.*, 1908, p. 767). Whatever the truth, this much is certain that the Prakrit transliteration used by Rājaśekhara in the beginning of the ninth century A. D. is Kaṇṇaujjā (Konow and Lanman, *Karpūra-mañjarī*, III. 5. p. 74, Harvard Oriental Series, 1901).